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I think that the most challenging aspect of my research would be getting a random population for my surveys. In order to find a random selection of people, I would need to go through the entire student population and create a random selection by creating strata, choosing each 100th person, etc. This would be very difficult given the large population. Additionally, it would be very difficult to know whether participants are being truthful in answering their surveys or not.
-Olivia Cameron

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All my peers said pretty much the same things as to how to reach out to people. I think THE MAIN CONSTRAINTS are honesty and actually getting people to take the surveys. People don't like to read their emails and stop because well, time is precious. Everyone always seems to be in a hurry.

-ELIZABETH Ramirez

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The most challenging issues in answering this question with my proposal would be in how the participants are sourced.  I would need the cooperation of the OSU administration to obtain information, such as class schedules and e-mail addresses to expose the subjects to the different methods. I would also need a bot or program of some sort, maybe constant contact, to take a lot of the repeat effort out of it (also, to measure if subjects were actually opening the e-mails, social media posts).

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Who will you study?
The audience will be students/teachers of Oregon State University who live on Campus and or use the schools facilities.

How will you collect data?
I think paper surveys are always an easy way of gathering information, although not always honest answers. Emailing students with surveys can be effective but most times ignored.

What Data will you collect?
Figure out what departments and buildings are using the most water (gallons/tons) per day. Who uses those facilities? How can water waste be diminished. The data would be answers to questions on a 0-5 scale exp:
{How often do you turn on the water faucet when using the restroom? 0=Never 5=Always. } most people are in a rush and don't have time for fill in the blanks

-ELIZABETH Ramirez

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I’m not familiar on the layout of the actual OSU campus in being a distance learner, but I would find three buildings that see high traffic, but no cross-traffic. In an ideal situation, I could obtain a list of every student that frequents each of these buildings, and over a period of at least a year, since water use may be seasonal, I could measure a baseline for water consumption at each of the buildings. When I am able to predict expected water use, I would be ready to move on to part 2, which would be having the three buildings and the people who frequent them be separate control groups, and expose each group to the separate methods listed.

To measure how effective it is, I could graph month-by-month water use over a period of several years to graph trends. For example, perhaps an email may be immediately effective, but there would be diminishing results over time. Or the opposite may be true. Is there one that is consistent? Another way to interpret success would be to see which building saw the largest decrease in water use on the meters.

Lastly, as mentioned earlier, with water use having seasonal swings, I feel this would need to be a multi-year study to be accurate. Also, to see if the method proposed has staying power.
-Sarah Hackenberg

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Perhaps, the most challenging aspect of answering this research question will be the methodology used to collect data. From what our group has come up with, it seems like an overwhelming amount of work needed to gather the required information.
-- La'akea Low

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After learning how important control and environment is when conducting research, my initial idea of surveying would be less effective. Without performing research in a controlled environment responses would have to be taken less seriously. As for interviewing, it would be better than surveying but would require an incredible amount of work and hours to complete the research, and depending on how serious the issue of water conservation is to me, I would have to decide if it is worth it. - Noah Lapp

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The most challenging thing about this research question is the method of the surveys and getting a response. Not everyone participates in surveys or responds to an email and we could have a low amount of responses.
-Tia Beavert

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I believe that the most challenging aspect of conducting and answering these questions will be getting enough responses to my surveys and getting enough interviews.  The key to getting plenty of responses is designing your survey to short and simple while it answers the questions you need answered.

- Kevin Connolly

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Who will you study?

Due to the focus of this study, i believe that it would make sense to make the students and faculty of OSU Cascades.  I believe that you would be in a good spot if you used a sample group of both faculty and staff to mirror the larger OSU Cascades popuation.

How Will you Collect Data?
In my experience, i have found that surveys are a fairly effective tool when it comes to gathering information. Some individuals really do not enjoy going out of their way to take the time to do a survey so I will make sure that the survey does not take an exorbitant amount of time to complete. I will also ask my classmates to complete a physical survey which is identical to the online one.

What type of Data will you collect?
I will collect both online and physical survey information. In addition to this I will also be collecting a library of interviews with individuals whom are being studied. I will also ask for their email and if I can contact them in the future
-Kevin Connolly

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I think the most challenging aspects of this research question would be designing survey questions to accurately represent and find out OSU's water consumption by person, and then determining from that how to best promote water conservation overall. You need to find answers to the first question in order to address the promotion of water conservation better.

~ Hannah Keeler

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I think the most difficult part of answering this research question would be gaining representative data. With the wide array of people inconsistently involved in a university, it would be hard to capture the water usage accurately.
-Morgan E. De Meyer

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After reading everyone's posts it looks like almost everyone is agreeing to use a case study approach to collect information for this research question. Although we have a solid start on ideas what I see as being a problem is the amount of feedback and responses we would get from our surveys. Many people mentioned performing an email survey which would get lost either in the spam filter or ignored as many people to do not want to participate. I would think that in person surveys with a potential award like a small gift card would increase the level of feedback we would receive.   Cassandra Rohrberg

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The most challenging question about answering this research question to me is truly understanding what it was that made the subject think twice about their water conservation. I pay particular attention to detail so I am wondering if it is the specific words/phrase that would be used, the color scheme, the image, where the message is placed, how it is recieved (after washing hands or taking a shower for example), or even the difference between being bombarded or one heavy hitter. The goal is to figure out "what is the most effective message" and that could mean a lot of different things for different people because interpretation of the design is what flaws this experiment from having one solid answer. - DAKOTA STEEN

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I'm posting late and my first idea was about facility water use on campus - sprinklers, low flow toilets and the like. After reading others, I think the idea about students and faculty is probably good too. This population may be easier to identify and select a sample. You could do it across the university or a particular school/facility. I don't know enough about OSU to make super informed decisions on this aspect.

HOW WILL YOU COLLECT DATA?
There seem to be a lot of opportunities here - provided they are allowed. Most students have email access. Depending on the data that can be shared with a researcher (after human subject review), you could possibly do an email survey. If this is not allowed, you could do brief in person interviews on campus (if you do a sign in a restroom, you could do restroom exit interviews - although that specific one might be a little creepy - maybe a cafeteria exit interview). The campus environment also might be ideal for a focus group situation - where you bring a group in and get more in depth discussion about various campaigns.

WHAT TYPE OF DATA WOULD YOU COLLECT?
The data would be responses to the questions. There may be opportunities for observational behavioral responses (like providing options of low flow toilets and see which ones are used more - but they'd have to be in similar locations to avoid that selection factor). You could have paper towel/hand blower options and see how many paper towels are consumed following a campaign. Or similar. There may be demographics that are desirable too (age, gender, etc.) to see if there is more effective messages to target to different groups. There was a recent article that suggested recycling wasn't "masculine" and men might be less likely - this would be noteworthy in this type of research on messages.

Susan Lee

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Who will you study?

Given that we want to promote water conservation at OSU, I will need to study the OSU community. This includes students, proffessors, and other OSU staff. Given that students make up the majority of the population and, likewise, consume the most, they will be the main focus of the study.

How will you collect data?

I will collect data through surveys and questionnaires about people’s water consumption at OSU. Surveys need to be adapted to each study group. The approach needs to be different because of the circumstances. For example, students who live in the dorms might have different exposure to promotion than proffessors. This information should be included in the questionnaire as well.

What type of data will you collect?

The questionnaire should include questions about what they have seen in the past (through different campaigns) and how informative or influential have they been in te past. Maybe even present images of previous posters.

-Ana Medina Roman

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Who will you study?

Depends on the target population but I would try to get a random sample that represents the population of Oregon State community. Meaning students, teachers, faculty, visitors, etc that come from different majors, housing, backgrounds, age, usage of technology, etc.

How will you collect data?

Some ways to collect data could be surveys on campus to see views and knowledge of water conservation.

What type of data will you collect?

With enough people interviewed we could could get knowledge gained after message was sent out about water conservation and results of approximate on water conservation as a result in gallons.

-Heidi Gasperetti

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Who will you study?
I think it would be important to study the students and the faculty given the promotion of water conservation efforts is specific to Oregon State University.

How will you collect data?
I would think that collection of data via surveys and questionnaires would be useful in this study. I also think sending out a promotion of water conservation via email that has a link to click on for confirmation of receiving the email would be effective to calculate how many people actually read the email you sent out.

How much data will you need?
I would think one would need a fair amount of data to calculate which is the most effective way to promote water conservation at Oregon State University. I think you would need to collect data on each of the different ways you try to promote water conservation in order to compare your results and come to a solid conclusion on the subject.

~Amanda Broten

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Who will you study?
The study would involve both students and facility at the University. They would be divided into on-campus and  off-campus students  because some live off campus and are at the university less than those that reside on campus.
How will you collect data?
Data will be collected by utilizing surveys or questionnaires distributed thru a link via campus email or social media (twitter, facebook, etc).
What type of data will you collect?
Data collected on the survey itself could include the individuals preference of future surveys and usefulness of the survey. Data collected on water usage would include the amount of water usage. This can be determined by obtaining how many times the individual flushes the toilet, turns on the water to wash hands, brush teeth, cook, etc.

-Tia Beavert

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I think that the main challenge of answering this research question will be getting data to work with. Many people do not respond to surveys and emails. I also foresee avoiding bias as being a big issue, such as voluntary response bias - John McMahan

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Who will you study?

The target audience will be determined by who the majority users of water at Oregon State are. Likely the audience would be students and faculty on the campus. If you were interested in reaching the most people who consume the most, you would target students who are living on campus and consume a much higher rate of water than the average student who loves off campus.

How will you collect data?

I think that the best way to acquire information is through multiple avenues. Email is an easy way to reach the whole population. In conjunction with email, in-class surveys are a way to reach the portion of the student population who do not read emails.

What type of data will you collect?

I would ask what would be the best way to reach the students, whether online surveys, printed publications, or emails would be better to communicate something to them. I think that gaining an idea of what the different demographics of the campus prefer would be inciteful to help target those demographics specifically.

John McMahan

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Post 1

Who will you study?

"Oregon State University" is a very broad subject to pool data from because it generalizes a wide array of people who use water resources differently. I would need to distinguish between who are the on-campus/off-campus students as well as taking into consideration a portion for faculty, staff, and even visitors. Events such as game days and tours dramatically increase water use with an influx of people. It would need to include students, faculty, staff, and visitors.

How will you collect data?

It would be interesting to have each toilet tally the number of flushes per day as well as the minutes a sink or water bottle filling station takes while in use to create quantitative data through the rate of pressure water is being expressed from each faucet/toilet. I realize that this might be a little far-fetched but if I were to do an experiment I would get right down to the nitty-gritty because survey's take too much time.

What type of data will you collect?

I would collect the approximate amount of water in liters to go with the metric system for simplicity, but present it in gallons so the findings are more understandable. Measuring the amount of water during one flush, one hand washing session, or water bottle fill up would be interesting to chart for a day because it could be compared over time and I can only assume there would be trends of spikes and dips during high use game days vs. summer months.

Dakota Steen

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I think that the most challenging part will be to get the information out and gather surveys. Both teachers and college students are busy and typically do not like being interviewed. Some also do not like to share their form of communication with researchers or strangers.

-Agnes Rehr-Zimmermann

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I think that the research would require higher constraint, as we want a random sample. We cannot just observe the water increase or decrease on one's bill, nor the social media that every person in the sample uses. The procedure would have to be followed precisely to not offer bias.

-Agnes Rehr-Zimmermann

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Who will you study?

I think that since the goal is to promote water conservation at Oregon State University, the subjects of the study conducted should be the student population. They are the largest group of people that will be frequenting that location.

How will you collect data?

Some sort of questionnaire or survey would probably be the most efficient method of getting accurate results. Ideally, if the survey or questionnaire is optional for students and staff to participate in, they will give genuine responses to questions.

What type of data will you collect?

The data collected will include questions regarding which method ( emails, social media) students and faculty feel would be the most effective at promoting conservation.

Brynn Almodovar

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Who should we study?

I believe that it would be most plausible to study a representative population of Oregon State University. This would include faculty, staff (including maintenance/janitorial) and students. As this represents a wide demographic range, including the average lifestyle of a student or faculty living with parents, in a family unit, a greek life house or a dorm, we may consider doing a simple random sample of the university population. 

How will you collect data?

I believe that after randomly selecting students (computer generated database?), a survery method would be the best. Although many students tend to ignore survey emails, this may be the best option as we would be sampling a large population. As many student's and faculty's  phone number are on the university's database, we could also try calling the randomly selected people. If we could send a survey with the selected person's water or utilities bill, that would be awesome, yet students that live in dorms do not receive direct utility bills.

What type of data would you collect?

I would ask the individuals which platform they use most to receive information, later using a bar graph to analyze the answers. I would also ask about the behavioral affect of reminders on water conservation in correlation to delivering an effective message.

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"What is the most effective message to promote water conservation at Oregon State University"
Who will you study?
The university is multidimensional from students on campus for classes, faculty, students that live on campus, visitors, sporting event audiences, and many more spectrums of people that use water at OSU.
I think the most effective message would be geared towards the students (both taking classes and living on campus) and faculty. These would be the groups of people I would study.
How will you collect data?
In a realistic world a budget would probably only allow surveys of people who wanted to participate. In a perfect world we could potentially gather readings from the water meters around campus and find evidence of what the water was used for (landscaping, living, bathrooms, etc.).
How much data will you need?
Ideally I would want to collect about a years worth of data to see how the seasonal changes affect the amount of water used.

-Cassandra Rohrberg

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Who will you study?
Since the question is focusing on promoting water conservation at Oregon State University, students and faculty would be the ideal target group.

How will you collect data?
Data could be collected by a survey distributed through valid OSU student and teacher emails. Everyone may not respond, but this ensures that the survey is taken by OSU students and staff only.

What type of data will you collect?
Data that could be collected might correspond to what medium (posters, social media, email, etc.) people find most appealing when considering an issue or a potential behavioral change. What will people take the time to look at?

~ Hannah Keeler

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Who will you study?
I think for the described study on Oregon State University’s campus the targeted audience to study would be the students and faculty of OSU as they are the ones who frequent the campus.

How will you collect data?
In order to collect the data I think the most effective way would be to take surveys on campus, and on social media.

What type of data will you collect?
Via the surveys on campus and social media I would ask the students and faculty if they would be more likely to read information on water conservation if it was on a paper poster, posts on social media or by email to their ONID accounts. This data will help inform the research which delivery method would be the most effective for promoting water conservation at OSU.

Jeremy Darst

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Who will you study?

Nearby communities may be studied.

How will you collect data?

Data may be collected via public record.

What type of data will you collect?

Type of data collected may include local water usage records.

How much data will you need?
Data within a certain range, or proximity relative to OSU may suffice.

–La‘akea Low

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What is the most effective message to promote water conservation at Oregon State University?

In 1-2 sentences answer:

Who will be studied?

Considering the narrow scope of Oregon State University, the people being studied will be the students and faculty of Oregon State. There also needs to be a distinction of who is living on campus and who is not because the water usage will obviously be more for someone who is utilizing the facilities almost every day.

How will the data be collected?

I sometimes get surveys through the University itself in my email about things like mental health and study habits. I think this would be a great way to see how the OSU populace is utilizing water as well as pulling direct information of water usage from the school (if possible).

How much data will you need?

I believe that an data amount representative of our 24,672 on campus students and the number of faculty working on the premise (I am not sure of that number). It will be a somewhat large amount of data because we are pulling from different groups and a large sample.
~Morgan E. De Meyer

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Who will you study?
I think the most important point to make in answering this is that the sample population should match the population from which we want to make an inference. If we want to determine the most effective way of promoting water conservation amongst OSU students, we should study a population randomly representative of "OSU students", versus if we want to include the greater OSU community, we should study a population randomly representative of the "greater OSU community" (perhaps by a stratified sample, organized by students, faculty, etc.).

How will you collect data?
I am having trouble generating specific ideas for how to collect data, but the most simple would perhaps be through surveys. This might produce some bias responses (as some people may answer the way they think the researcher wants them to answer), but this is the idea that came to mind.

What type of data will you collect?
In the survey, I would include questions that simply ask whether the individuals feel as though they would be more inclined to change their behavior if the information was delivered to them in various specific forms (posters, social media, etc.) Another idea may be to do a pre and post survey about water usage, and to expose randomized groups to different ways to promote water conservation.

Note: Looking at my post, I don't think that a survey would be the most likely to produce useful results, but I do think that as the first post on this discussion, this is a good jumping-off point.

-Olivia Cameron

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